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TRANSLATING THE SELEUCID ΒΑΣΙΛΙΣΣΑ: NOTES ON THE TITULATURE OF STRATONICE IN THE BORSIPPA CYLINDER

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 September 2019

Marie Widmer
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Until the end of the twentieth century, the study of Hellenistic Babylonia appealed mostly to researchers trained in Classics. When J. G. Droysen published Geschichte des Hellenismus between 1836 and 1843, Akkadian had in fact not yet been deciphered. Classical texts therefore provided the only way in which scholars could understand Babylonia. When Assyriology developed as a field on its own, researchers focused on Sumero-Akkadian culture; they considered the Hellenistic period to be a decadent time in which Greek culture had infiltrated the native one, to its detriment. With these two perspectives combined, the Hellenocentric understanding of Hellenistic Babylonia was strengthened. In the early 1990s, however, Susan Sherwin-White and Amelie Kuhrt vigorously upended this view. They focused on non-classical texts and documents and thereby stressed the vitality of Near Eastern cultural traditions. Their challenging work paved the way for intercultural reflection on Hellenistic Babylonia. In effect, the interactions between Babylon and Greece could therefore be developed, by a new generation of researchers, as cross-cultural, meaning that it is likely that mutual impact was felt in both cultures. Among them, Stephanie M. Langin-Hooper offers, in the field of archaeology, a useful interpretative model which analyses cultural interactions in their diachronic and multi-directional dimensions. She assumes the existence of cultural mediators who stimulate interactions between people of two cultural backgrounds sharing a common space. Over time, the facilitation of exchange may affect the nature of social relationships, so much so that they no longer develop in accordance with cultural factors but rather with social class, age, gender, or profession. This implies numerous combinations which vary depending on the sociocultural background of each participant in a given social interaction.

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Research Article
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Greece & Rome , Volume 66 , Issue 2 , October 2019 , pp. 264 - 279
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Copyright © The Classical Association 2019 

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Footnotes

I would like to thank Patrick Maxime Michel, Michel Aberson, and André Ourednik for their comments on this article and the stimulating discussions I had with them. I would also like to thank the anonymous referee of Greece & Rome for providing very helpful comments and guidance. This work was produced at the University of Lausanne and within the framework of the Unit of Excellence LabexMed – Social Sciences and Humanities at the heart of multidisciplinary research for the Mediterranean, which holds the following reference: 10–LABX–0090. The project leading to this publication received funding from the Excellence Initiative of Aix-Marseille University (A*MIDEX), a French ‘Investissements d'Avenir’ programme.

References

1 See Monerie, J., D'Alexandre à Zoilos. Dictionnaire prosopographique des porteurs de nom grec dans les sources cunéiformes (Stuttgart, 2014), 65–72Google Scholar, for a recent and concise overview of the historiographical milestones of Hellenistic Babylonian studies.

2 Sherwin-White, S. and Kuhrt, A., From Samarkand to Sardis. A New Approach to the Seleucid Empire (London, 1993)Google Scholar.

3 See, among others, Boiy, T., Late Achaemenid and Hellenistic Babylon (Louvain, 2004)Google Scholar; Clancier, P. and Monerie, J., ‘Les sanctuaire babyloniens à l’époque hellénistique: évolution d'un relais de pouvoir’, Topoi 19.1 (2014), 181–237CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kosmin, P., The Land of the Elephant Kings. Space, Territory, and Ideology in the Seleucid Empire (Cambridge, MA, 2014)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Strootman, R., Courts and Elites in the Hellenistic Empires (Edinburgh, 2014)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Stevens, K., ‘The Antiochus Cylinder, Babylonian Scholarship and Seleucid Imperial Ideology’, JHS 134 (2014), 66–88CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 Rossi, R., ‘Introduction: From Pella to Gandhāra’ in Kouremenos, A., Chandrasekaran, S., and Rossi, R. (eds.), From Pella to Gandhara. Hybridisation and Identity in the Art and Architecture of the Hellenistic East (Oxford, 2011), 5Google Scholar, outlines the various ways in which cultural interactions might be analysed (hybridity, métissage, creolisation, etc.).

5 Langin-Hooper, S. M., ‘Social Networks and Cross-Cultural Interactions: A New Interpretation of the Female Terracotta Figurines of Hellenistic Babylon’, OJA 26. 2 (2007), 161–4Google Scholar. I thank Gillian Ramsey for pointing this article out to me.

6 The assembly of culturally diverse people in a single space does not necessarily bring about cultural fusion. As A. Wallace-Hadrill, Rome's Cultural Revolution (Cambridge, 2008), 13, suggests, with Chris Gosden, ‘in colonialist circumstances…the elements can survive in plurality alongside each other, perhaps as “discrepant identities”, or even simply as parallel and coexistent ones’.

7 Dillery, J., Clio's Other Sons. Berossus and Manetho with an Afterword on Demetrius (Ann Arbor, MI, 2015), xviiiCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8 For the cross-cultural readings of the Cylinder, see in particular Stevens (n. 3), 66–88; Kosmin, P., ‘Seeing Double in Seleucid Babylonia: Rereading the Borsippa Cylinder of Antiochus I’, in Moreno, A. and Thomas, R. (eds.), Patterns of the Past. Epitēdeumata in the Greek Tradition (Oxford, 2014), 173–98CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Strootman, R., ‘Babylonian, Macedonian, King of the World: the Antiochus Cylinder from Borsippa and Seleukid Imperial Integration’ in Stavrianopoulou, E. (ed.), Shifting Social Imaginaries in the Hellenistic Period. Narrations, Practices and Images (Leiden, 2013), 67–97Google Scholar.

9 Reade, J. E., ‘Rassam's Excavations at Borsippa and Kutha, 1879–82’, Iraq 48 (1986), 106–11CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10 The Cylinder's text was first copied by Strassmaier, J. N., Die altbabylonische Verträge aus Warka (Berlin, 1882), 139–42Google Scholar. Sherwin-White, S. and Kuhrt, A., ‘Aspect of Seleucid Royal Ideology: The Cylinder of Antiochus I from Borsippa’, JHS 111 (1991), 75–7Google Scholar, offer a transliteration and translation of the text, recently amended by K. Stevens, ‘Collations to the Antiochus Cylinder (BM 36277)’, Nouvelles Assyriologiques Brèves et Utilitaires (2012), 46–7, no. 35. Stevens (n. 3), 68–9, give a new transliteration and translation of the Cylinder's text that is followed by M. Stol and R. J. van der Spek, ‘The Cylinder of Antiochus I from the Ezida Temple in Borsippa (BM 36277)’, <https://www.livius.org/sources/content/mesopotamian-chronicles-content/antiochus-cylinder/>, accessed 28 May 2019.

11 Stevens (n. 3), 69–72, convincingly demonstrated the process and its consequences for the interpretation of the Cylinder. Nevertheless, she notes that ‘the use of motifs or phrases from previous inscriptions is common in this genre’ (72) and that the phenomenon already existed earlier in the first millennium bce.

12 See, for instance, Stevens (n. 3), 66–88; Kosmin (n. 8), 173–98; and Strootman (n. 8), 67–97.

13 See most recently Stevens (n. 3), 72–82, who lists the different breaks with Mesopotamian tradition that can be observed in the Seleucid royal ideology (i.e. the ethnic Macedonian, the dating formula, the prominence of the queen, and the depiction of the Seleucid royal family). She also remarks on the representation of rulers and gods and their interrelationships, which she considers to be ‘in line with Seleucid royal ideology’ (79). On the prominence of the queen, see specifically Sherwin-White and Kuhrt (n. 10), 83–5.

14 Transliteration and translation from Stevens (n. 3), 69.

15 Sherwin-White and Kuhrt (n. 10), 83–5; Kosmin (n. 8), 186–8.

16 Plut. Vit. Demetr. 31. 5 mentions the marriage between Seleucos and Stratonice. Val. Max. 5.7.1, Plut. Vit. Demetr. 38. 1–12, App. Syr. 59–62, Lucian Syr. D. 17–18, Julian. Mis. 347–58, and Malalas, Chronographia, 204–5 (Dind.) all mention the marriage between Antiochos and Stratonice.

17 Contra Sherwin-White and Kuhrt (n. 10), 84–5, according to whom ‘it is’ the ‘exceptional circumstances’ resulting from her consecutive weddings ‘that explain her mention in this context, and possibly also the specific choice of titles she bears in the cylinder’; see also Kosmin (n. 8), 186–8.

18 Widmer, M., ‘Apamè: une reine au cœur de la construction d'un royaume’, in Bielman, A., Cogitore, I., and Kolb, A. (eds.), Femmes influentes dans le monde hellénistique et à Rome (IIIe siècle av. J.-C.–Ier siècle apr. J.-C.) (Grenoble, 2016), 17–33Google Scholar.

19 Bringmann, K. and von Steuben, H. (eds.), Schenkungen hellenistischer Herrscher an griechische Städte und Heiligtümer, Teil 1. Zeugnisse und Kommentare (Berlin, 1995), 341–3Google Scholar, KNr. 281 [E 2].

20 Apameia in Sittacene: Plin. HN 6.31.3; Apameia Rhagiana in Media: Str. 11.9.1; Apameia on the Euphrates in Commagene: Plin. HN 5.21; Apameia on the Axios in North Syria: Strabo 16.2.4. See Carney, E., ‘Eponymous Women: Royal Women and City Names’, AHB 2. 6 (1988), 134–43Google Scholar, on the signification of naming cities after royal women at the beginning of Hellenistic period.

21 Cohen, G. M., The Hellenistic Settlements in Syria, the Red Sea Basin, and North Africa (Berkeley, CA, 2006), 94–101CrossRefGoogle Scholar, on Apameia on the Capetrey, Axios. L., Le pouvoir séleucide. Territoire, administration, finances d'un royaume hellénistique (312–129 avant J.-C.) (Rennes, 2007), 59–72CrossRefGoogle Scholar, on the political and ideological meaning of the Tetrapolis.

22 Ma, J., Antiochos III and the Cities of Western Asia Minor (Oxford, 1999), 308–11Google Scholar, no. 17, lines 47–9: …ὅπως ἀφέντες τὴμ πόλιν καὶ τὴν χώραν ἱερὰν | καὶ ἄσυλον καὶ [π]αραλύσαντες ἡμᾶς τῶμ φόρων καὶ χαρισ[ά]μενοι ταῦ|τα τῶι τε δήμ̣[ω]ι καὶ τῶι κοινῶι τῶμ περὶ τὸν Διόνυσον τ̣ε̣χνιτῶν…

23 On the use of kinship language in the Seleucid kingdom, see Coloru, O., ‘The Language of the Oikos and the Language of Power in the Seleucid Kingdom’, in Laurence, R. and Strömberg, A. (eds.), Families in the Greco-Roman World (London, 2012), 84–94Google Scholar. Carney, E., ‘Being Royal and Female in the Early Hellenistic Period’, in Erskine, A. and Llewellyn-Jones, L. (eds.), Creating a Hellenistic Word (Swansea, 2011), 205Google Scholar, notes that ‘the Seleucids generated an image of dynastic solidarity, one that centered on the current royal couple and the heir’.

24 On the first Seleucid queens (from Apama to Laodice IV), see M. Widmer, ‘La construction des identités politiques des reines séleucides’, PhD thesis, Lausanne University (2015).

25 Stevens (n. 3), 86, reaches a similar conclusion, namely that in the text of the Cylinder ‘the dynastic emphasis is Seleucid, the language Babylonian, the theology Borsippan’.

26 Antiochos I, Stratonice, and their son Antiochos (the future Antiochos II) formed the Seleucid ruling family from 268 bce. The Ionian League decreed cultural honours for them (between 268 and 262 bce). See Engelmann, H. and Merkelbach, R. (eds.), Die Inschriften von Erythrai und Klazomenai, part 2, IK 2 (Bonn, 1973), 494–5Google Scholar, no. 504, lines 33–4 and 38–9: τοῖς βασιλεῦσιν Ἀντιόχωι καὶ Ἀντιόχωι καὶ τῆι βασιλίσσηι Στρατονίκηι (‘for the kings Antiochos and Antiochos and the queen Stratonice’). Seleucos, the son of Antiochos and Stratonice mentioned in the Cylinder, died in 268 bce from illness, contrary to the assertion of Pompey Trogue (Pomp. Trog. Prol. 26). See also Del Monte, G., ‘Antiocho I Soter e i figli Seleuco e Antiocho, un nuovo testo da Babilonia’, SCO 45 (1995), 433–44Google Scholar. We do not have Greek occurrences of the Seleucid ‘triad’ composed of Antiochos I, Stratonice, and Seleucos.

27 Boiy, T., ‘Royal Titulature in Hellenistic Babylonia’, Zeitschrift für Assyriologie und Vorderasiatische Archäologie 92. 2 (2002), 244–5CrossRefGoogle Scholar, notes that Cyrus the Great added the element ‘king of the lands’ and that gradually the original Neo-Babylonian part of the royal title disappeared and ‘king of the lands’ was the only title left for the Achaemenid rulers.

28 An unidentified Seleucos: Metropolitan Museum of Art 86.11.371A, reverse column iv, line 1, published in Spar, I. and Lambert, G. W. (eds.), Cuneiform Texts in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. II. Literary and Scholastic Texts of the First Millennium b.c. (Turnhout, 2005), 251–5Google Scholar, no. 63; Seleucos I and Antiochos I: British Museum (BM) 33541, reverse line 28, published in Lambert, G. W., ‘A Neo-Babylonian Tammuz Lament’, JAOS 103. 1 (1983), 211–15Google Scholar; Antiochos II: ritual for reciting incantations and prayers copied in the reign of Antiochos II published in Clay, A. T., Babylonian Epics, Hymns, Omens and Other Texts. Ancient Texts and Translations (Eugene, OR, 2005; first published 1923), 17–22Google Scholar, no. 7, line 48 [mAn-ti-’-ku-su šar (lugal) mâtâti (kur.kur)]; Seleucos III: Morgan Library Collection 1890, line 36 published in Beaulieu, P.-A., ‘Theological and Philosophical Speculations on the Name of the Goddess Antu’, Orientalia 64 (1995), 187–213Google Scholar; Antiochos III: the astronomical diary -213 mentions a šar mātāti (lugal kur.kur), published in Mitsuma, Y., ‘Large Wooden Writing Board Mentioned in the Astronomical Diary -213’, Nouvelles Assyriologiques Brèves et Utilitaires (2013), 90–2Google Scholar, no. 54. For further references, see Oelsner, J., ‘Ein Beitrag zu keilschriftlichen Königstitulaturen in hellenistischer Zeit’, Zeitschrift für Assyriologie und Vorderasiatische Archäologie 56. 1 (1964), 262–74CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Mitsuma (this note), 90–2.

29 mKa-am-bu-zi-ia dumu ṣi-it ša-bi-[ia] (‘Cambyses, the son [my] issue’); line 27 of the Cyrus Cylinder. The most recent translation of the text is given in Finkel, I., ‘The Cyrus Cylinder: The Babylonian Perspective’ in Finkel, I. (ed.), The Cyrus Cylinder. The King of Persia's Proclamation from Ancient Babylon (London, 2013), 6Google Scholar.

30 Contenau, G., Contrats néo-babyloniens, II. Achéménides et Séleucides (Paris, 1929), 236Google Scholar, reverse line 29 (man-t[i-’i]-i-ku-su u man-ti-’i-i-ku-su dumu-šú lugalmeš; ‘Antiochos and Antiochos his son, kings’), published in Corò, P., Prebende templari in età seleucide (Padua, 2005), 300–2Google Scholar. The co-rulers share the kingship (they are qualified as kings [šarr ū, written lugalmeš]) but the second one is defined by his affiliation with the first (mārušú, written dumu-šú), in much the same way as can be observed in the Borsippa Cylinder. Fifty-three years later, during the reign of Antiochos III, a similar titulature is used in the dating formula of a tablet from Uruk recording an inheritance (McEwan, G. J. P., Texts from Hellenistic Babylonia in the Ashmolean Museum [Oxford, 1982]Google Scholar, no. 41, obverse line 3: man-ti-’i-i-ku-su u man-ti-’i-i-ku-su du[mu-šú lugalmeš]; ‘Antiochos and Antiochos [his] so[n, kings]’). G. Del Monte, Testi della Babilonia ellenistica, I. Testi cronografici (Pisa, 1997), 229–30, notes that the co-rule of Antiochos I and his son Antiochos is also indicated by the titulature man-ti-’i-i-ku-su lugal.galú u man-ti-’i-i-ku-su a-šú lugal (‘Antiochos Great King and Antiochos his son king’). The Assyrian Dictionary of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago (CAD), A2, s.v. aplu 2 notes that ‘the writing a for aplu is very rare except in later periods’. Furthermore, aplu is used as a synonym for māru (equivalent to the sumerogram dumu) but in royal inscriptions it seems to mean the ‘heir’ more than the ‘son’ (CAD A2, s.v. aplu 2; and Stevens [n. 3] 81 n. 74). Other Babylonian texts refer to the king's son/s as a-šú lugal: the record of BM 55437 is dated by the sovereigns Antiochos I and his sons: man-ti-[’ -ku-su u] msi-lu-ku u man-ti-ku-su ameš-šú lugalmeš (‘Anti[ochos and] Seleucos and Antiochos his sons, kings’). The tablet is published in Stolper, M. W., Late Achaemenid, Early Macedonian and Early Seleucid Records of Deposit and Related Texts, AION supplement 77 (Naples, 1993), 46–9Google Scholar, no. 15. Antiochos III and his eldest son, Antiochos, are mentioned as man-ti-’i-i-ku-su u man-ti-’i-i-ku-su a-šú lugalmeš (‘Antiochos and Antiochos his son kings’) (O. Schroeder, Kontrakte der Seleukidenzeit aus Warka [Leipzig, 1916], no. 32, obverse line 32, recently published in Corò [this note], 197–8). Similarly, Antiochos IV and Antiochos are mentioned as man-ti-’i-i-ku-su u man-ti-’i-i-ku-su a-šú lugalmeš in a sales contract of building plots in Uruk (D. Weisberg, The Late Babylonian Texts of the Oriental Institute Collection [Malibu, CA, 1991], no. 13, obverse line 30; see Corò [this note], 107, for a partial translation).

31 CAD H, s.v. hīrtu; CAD S2, s.v. šarratu.

32 Sherwin-White and Kuhrt (n. 10), 85 and 77, n. 28. According to CAD H, s.v. hīrtu, ‘it is used of human beings only in the Old Babylonian period (first half of second millennium bce)’.

33 Galter, H. D., Levine, L. D., and Reade, J., ‘The Colossi of Sennacherib's Palace and Their Inscriptions’, Annual Review of the RIM Project 4 (1986), 32Google Scholar, presents the whole text and its translation. Kertai, D., ‘The Queens of the Neo-Assyrian Empire’, AOF 40 (2013), 116Google Scholar, gives only a translation.

34 On the translation of mí-é-gal (literally ‘woman of the palace’) as ‘queen’, see Kertai (n. 33), 109–10, 116, who follows the observations of S. Svärd, Power and Women in the Neo-Assyrian Palaces (Helsinki, 2015), 95: ‘When one looks at the attestations of the title mí-é-gal as a whole, they definitely seem to form a chain, not a crowd, of women.’

35 Melville, S. C., ‘Neo-Assyrian Royal Women and Male Identity: Status as a Social Tool’, JAOS 124.1 (2004), 43Google Scholar. It should be noted, though, that the word šarratu is used in the name of two known Neo-Assyrian queens: Tašmetu-šarrat and Libbali-šarrat, the wife of Assurbanipal.

36 British Museum, Kouyunjik Collection 2144, col. II, lines 10–15 = J. A. Craig, Assyrian and Babylonian Religious Texts, 2 vols. (Leipzig, 1895–7), i.76–9; published with a French translation in Matsushima, E., ‘Les rituels du mariage divin dans les documents accadiens’, Acta Sumerologica 10 (1988), 100–5Google Scholar. See also Millard, A. R., ‘Another Babylonian Chronicle Text’, Iraq 26.1 (1964), 19–23CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Nissen, M., ‘Akkadian Rituals and Poetry of Divine Love’, in Whiting, R. M. (ed.), Mythology and Mythologies. Methodological Approaches to Intercultural Influences (Helsinki, 2001), 104–5Google Scholar.

37 The inscription dates from the year 655 bce, namely during the reign of Sennacherib's grandson Assurbanipal. However, the text is formed by a ‘copy-and-paste’ process and reproduces a prayer addressed to Aššur and Millussu for Sennacherib. See Nissen (n. 36), 104 n. 87.

38 Stevens (n. 3), 75, notes that Antiochos’ titulature, expressed in the first lines of the Cylinder, ‘combines Assyrian, Babylonian and Persian titles and is closest in exact arrangement to the Assyrianizing titulature adopted late in his reign by Nabonidus, the last native ruler of Babylonia’. Nevertheless, as M. Stol, Women in the Ancient Near East (Boston/Berlin, 2016) (2012 original edition Uitgeverij Kok, Utrecht), 548, notes: ‘not much is known about princesses and queens in the Neo-Babylonian period except for the mother of King Nabonidus’. This may also explain the lack of Neo-Babylonian parallels.

39 An astronomical diary from 273 bce, published in Del Monte (n. 30), 27–8, mentions the king's departure to war and the fact that his wife (dam-su, i.e. Stratonice?) stays in Sardis. An astronomical diary from 187 bce published in ibid., 66–8, mentions a ritual performed for the king's life, the life of his wife (dam-šú, i.e. Laodice III?) and the life of his sons (ameš-šú). An astronomical diary from 182 bce, published in ibid., 70, mentions rumours about the death of Laodice IV: flu-di-q[é-e] dam msi-lu-ku lugal (‘Laodice, the wife of Seleucos’). Furthermore, in the same text Laodice is qualified as nin (‘queen’): seee I. Savalli-Lestrade, ‘Le mogli di Seleuco IV e di Antioco IV’, in B. Virgilio (ed.), Studi ellenistici 16 (Pisa, 2005), 195–202. An astronomical diary from 178 bce, published in Del Monte (n. 30), 71–2, mentions a ritual performed for the king's life (msi-lu-ku lugal), the life of his wife (dam-šú, ?) and the life of his sons (lúameš-šú). I choose not to mention the occurrences which refer to Laodice, the wife of Antiochos II, owing to the ongoing debate which surrounds her status after the wedding of Antiochos with Berenice. Were they both βασίλισσα? See Del Monte (n. 30), 43–5; L. Martinez-Sève, ‘Laodice femme d'Antiochos II: du roman à la reconstruction historique’, REG 116 (2003), 690–706; M. D'Agostini, ‘Representation and Agency of Royal Women in Hellenistic Dynastic Crises: The Case of Berenike and Laodice’, in Bielman, Cogitore, and Kolb (n. 18), 35–59.

40 CAD A2, s.v. aššatu(o), for the historical references.

41 An astronomical diary from 254 bce, published in Del Monte (n. 30), 41–2, mentions rumours about the death of Stratonice. The text is known in two versions. In the first one Stratonice is [fas-t]a-rat-ni-qé-e m[í.lugal …] (‘the q[ueen] Stratonice’); in the second, she is [fas]-ta-rat-ni-qé gašan (‘Lady/Queen Stratonice’). An astronomical diary from 141 bce, published in ibid., 103–4, mentions the Seleucid sovereigns Antiochos and Laodice during the reign of the Arsacid king Mithridates I: […ma]n-ti-’u-uk-su flu-di-qé-e gašan (‘[…A]ntiochos and Lady Laodice’).

42 CAD B, s.v. bēltu 1a–1c, notes that nin can be used to refer to a goddess, a woman, or a queen. According to CAD S2, s.v. šarratu, gašan has a lexical value as šarratu. See also Huber, I. and Hartmann, U., ‘“Denn ihrem Diktat vermochte der König nicht zu widersprechen…”: die Position der Frauen am Hof der Arsakiden’, in Panaino, A. and Piras, A. (eds.), Proceedings of the 5th Conference of the Societas Iranologica Europæa, vol. 1 (Milan, 2006)Google Scholar, 489 n. 14.

43 According to CAD S2, s.v. šarratu, nin has a lexical value as šarratu and gašan as well.

44 See above n. 41. The title m[í.lugal] is almost completely reconstructed and without Seleucid parallels as far as I know. The reading and the restoration are challenged by Michel, P. M., ‘De la dénomination des reines en Babylonie séleucide’, Nouvelles Assyriologiques Brèves et Utilitaires (2017), 32–3Google Scholar, no. 19.

45 On the contrary, the Arsacid Queen Asi'abaṭar, the spouse of Gotarzes I (91/90–81/80 bce), and her successors all bear the title gašan (‘the queen’), preceded by the mark of her link with the king: i.e. dam-su (‘his spouse’), nin-su (‘his sister’ = nin9) (on the difference between nin and nin9 see B. Landsberger [ed.], Materialen zum sumerischen Lexikon. Die Serie Ur-e-a = nâqu [Rome, 1951], 65, l. 421), ama-šú (‘his mother’). Unlike the Seleucid queens, the queen Asi'abaṭar and her successors are named in the dating formula. Del Monte (n. 30), 251–4: Gortazes and his spouse, Asi'abaṭar; ibid., 254–5: Orodes and his sister, his spouse, Ispubarza; ibid., 256–7: Phraates and his wife, Piriustana, and Teleonice whose title is lost. Huber and Hartmann (n. 42), 489 n. 16, add the following example: […] d15 ama-šú gašan; ‘[…]-Ištar, his mother, the queen’ (see also A. J. Sachs and H. Hunger, Astronomical Diaries and Related Texts from Babylonia, vol. 5: Lunar and Planetary Texts [Vienna, 2001], no. 30, av. 2–3).

46 A similar phenomenon is noted by Marchesi, G., ‘Who Was Buried in the Royal Tombs of Ur’, Orientalia 73 (2004), 179Google Scholar, §1, for the queen of Lagaš Bara(g)-namtara during the third millennium bce.

47 BM 40095 and 55572, edited and translated partially by Del Monte (n. 30), 70, and entirely by A. J. Sachs and H. Hunger, Astronomical Diaries and Related Texts from Babylonia, vol. 2: Diaries from 261 b.c. to 165 b.c. (Vienna, 1989), no. 181, 383–7.

48 Rev. 7–13 ˹ITU BI UD-7 na-áš˺-mu šá flu-di-q[é-e] | dam msi-lu-ku lugal a-na msi-lu-ku lugal lúd[am?-šú] | a-na urusi-lu-ki-’a-a šá muḫ-ḫi íd[idigna] | u íd lugal duku si-ip-du u bi-ki-tu 4 ina lìb-bi | il-tak-nu-ú ud.9.kám na-áš-mu-ú ina Eki it-t[e-eš-me] | um-ma nin šim-tu 4 ub-til u lúunmeš kur X X | u ukkin šá é.sag.gíl šá la X X X. (‘That month, the 7th day, rumour of Laodice, the wife of King Seleucos, came to King Seleucos…[…]to Seleucia on the Tigris and on the royal canal. Mourning and lamentation were held in it. The ninth day, the rumour was hear in Babylon as follows: “Fate has carried off the queen”, and the people of the land…And the assembly of Esagil which not…’). Sachs and Hunger (n. 47), 384.

49 Kosmin (n. 8), 180–8. Stevens (n. 3), 79–82, notes that ‘the overall argument that the Cylinder draws parallels between the royal and divine families is persuasive’. Nevertheless, she deconstructs the links forged by Kosmin between the divine and human actors, and offers the following parallels: Marduk–Antiochos, Erûa–Stratonice, and Nabû–Seleucos.

50 CAD H, s.v. ḫīrtu: ‘wife of equal status with the husband’. The word is attested from the Old Babylonian period onwards.

51 Ibid., s.v. ḫīrtu (a) lists two examples of the use of hīrtu in this sense. The first one dates back to the eighteenth century bce (it is the Code of Hammurabi): ḫi-ir-at-šu mārē ūlissum samassu mārē ūlissum (‘if his [chief] wife bears him sons and his slave girl [likewise] bears him sons’; CH §170, 39). The second one dates back to the Neo-Assyrian period, namely the ninth to sixth centuries bce, and is a text featuring incantations intended to repel diseases and spells: ka-sap ip-ṭi-ri-ia (!) ḫîrti-ia 5 aššâtemeš-ia 5 […] na-ad-nu-ka (‘the ransom for me, for my first wife [and] my [other] wives…is given to you’; AMT 72.1 r. 29–30).

52 Kertai (n. 33), 117, notes that Sennacherib, according to the evidence, may have had a third consort.

53 Ibid., 116, notes that Naqi'a was the mother of Esarhaddon, born c.713, and adds that she was still alive at the beginning of the reign of Assurbanipal in 668. As for Tašmetu, he observes that she was undeniably the wife and the queen of Sennacherib in 694 bce. He summarizes the debate between researchers who postulate that Naqi'a, unlike Tašmetu-šarrat, was never queen, and those who assume that the king's consorts were queen consecutively (118 and n. 8).

54 Ibid., 118.

55 Ogden, D., Polygamy, Prostitutes and Death. The Hellenistic Dynasties (London, 1999), xviGoogle Scholar.

56 Plut. Comp. Dem. Ant. 4: Ἔτι Δημήτριος μέν, οὐ κεκωλυμένον, ἀλλ’ ἀπὸ Φιλίππου καὶ Ἀλεξάνδρου γεγονὸς ἐν ἔθει τοῖς Μακεδόνων βασιλεῦσιν, ἐγάμει γάμους πλείονας, ὥσπερ Λυσίμαχος καὶ Πτολεμαῖος, ἔσχε δὲ διὰ τιμῆς ὅσας ἔγημεν· (‘Further, Demetrios, in making several marriages, did not do what was prohibited, but what had been made customary for the kings of Macedonia by Philip and Alexander; he did just what Lysimachos and Ptolemy did, and held all his wives in honour’). Translation from B. Perrin (ed.), Plutarch's Lives, Volume IX (Cambridge, MA, 1920).

57 Ogden (n. 55), 127–40.

58 Polyb. 5.43.4: μετὰ δὲ τὴν συντέλειαν τῶν γάμων καταβὰς εἰς Ἀντιόχειαν, βασίλισσαν ἀποδείξας τὴν Λαοδίκην. Translation from Paton, W. R. (ed.), Polybius. The Histories (Cambridge, MA, 1922)Google Scholar.

59 Ἀντίοχος δὲ ὁ μέγας ἐπικαλούμενος, ὃν Ῥωμαῖοι καθεῖλον, ὡς ἱστορεῖ Πολύβιος ἐν τῇ εἰκοστῇ, παρελθὼν εἰς Χαλκίδα τῆς Εὐβοίας συνετέλει γάμους, πεντήκοντα μὲν ἔτη γεγονὼς καὶ δύο τὰ μέγιστα τῶν ἔργων ἀνειληφώς, τήν τε τῶν Ἑλλήνων ἐλευθέρωσιν, ὡς αὐτὸς ἐπηγγέλλετο, καὶ τὸν πρὸς Ῥωμαίους πόλεμον. Ἐρασθεὶς οὖν παρθένου Χαλκιδικῆς κατὰ τὸν τοῦ πολέμου καιρὸν ἐφιλοτιμήσατο γῆμαι αὐτήν, οἰνοπότης ὢν καὶ μέθαις χαίρων. Ἦν δ’ αὕτη Κλεοπτολέμου μὲν θυγάτηρ, ἑνὸς τῶν ἐπιφανῶν, κάλλει δὲ πάσας ὑπερβάλλουσα. Καὶ τοὺς γάμους συντελῶν ἐν τῇ Χαλκίδι αὐτόθι διέτριψε τὸν χειμῶνα, τῶν ἐνεστώτων οὐδ’ἡντινοῦν ποιούμενος πρόνοιαν, ἔθετο δὲ καὶ τῇ παιδὶ ὄνομα Εὔβοιαν. Ἡττηθεὶς οὖν τῷ πολέμῳ ἔφυγεν εἰς Ἔφεσον μετὰ τῆς νεογάμου. Translation from Paton (n. 58).

60 Ogden (n. 55), 138, notes: ‘the bourgeois aspect of the union with Euboea might be argued to indicate that she was not taking all the way up into a full queenship’.

61 W. Scheidel, ‘Monogamy and Polygyny in Greece, Rome and World History’, Princeton/Stanford Working Papers in Classics (June 2008), 4, defines polygamy as follows: ‘it is defined by the overt presence of multiple ties of sexual access and “legitimate” reproduction (whilst allowing for differentiation among female spouses, especially between a principal wife and lower-ranking co-wives)’.

62 Widmer, M., ‘Looking for the Seleucid Couple’, in Sánchez, A. Bielman (ed.), Power Couples in Antiquity. Transversal Perspectives (London, 2019), 36–7Google Scholar.

63 I do not agree with the analysis of the titles of Stratonice offered by Kosmin (n. 8), 187. According to him, the titles ‘allow the queen to be represented in her notorious double role as the wife of both Antiochos I and his father Seleucos I’. It is, however, not certain that the promotion of the double marriage of Stratonice dates back to the reigns of Seleucos I and/or Antiochos I. It could reflect the need to idealize the founder of the dynasty when the Seleucid kingdom was no longer at the height of its fame. On this subject, see Hillgruber, M., ‘Liebe, Weisheit und Verzicht: zu Herkunft und Entwicklung der Geschichte von Antiochos und Stratonike’ in Brüggemann, T., Meissner, B., Mileta, C., Pabst, A., and Schmitt, O. (eds.), Studia hellenistica et historiographica. Festschrift für Andreas Mehl (Gutenberg, 2010), 99–100Google Scholar. As explained above, I assume that the prominence of Stratonice in the Cylinder is mainly linked to the common position of the queens in the political apparatus of the Seleucid powers and only incidentally to the specific personality of the second Seleucid sovereign.

64 On the emergence of the title βασίλισσα during the Hellenistic period, see Carney, E., ‘What's in a Name? The Emergence of a Title for Royal Women in the Hellenistic Period’, in Pomeroy, S. B. (ed.), Women's History and Ancient History (Chapel Hill, NC, 1991), 154–72Google Scholar.

65 The Cylinder was designed thirty-seven years after the emergence of the Seleucid kingship.

66 Stevens (n. 3), 85.

67 Ibid., 85–6, insists on the local nature of the document. Clancier and Monerie (n. 3), 194, note: ‘il convient de ne pas perdre de vue le fait que ce document demeurait confidentiel du fait de son statut de dépôt de fondation, quand bien même une copie aurait été conservée dans le sanctuaire de l'Ezida à Borsippa’ (‘it should be kept in mind that this document remained confidential because of its status as a foundation deposit, even if a copy was conserved in the Ezida temple at Borsippa’).